Mike Monroe: Horry helped shape Sacramento’s future

Kings fans have a long list of villains as they contemplate the impending loss of their team to Seattle.

Of course, the Maloofs are at the top of every list. Chris Hansen and Steve Ballmer are up there, too. So is David Stern.

In a much different way, Robert Horry is just as responsible as anyone for what is about to happen to the franchise.

Horry’s reputation as Big Shot Rob began with his buzzer-beating 3-pointer that gave the Lakers a win over the Kings in Game 4 of the 2002 Western Conference finals.

Any conversation about the most dramatic shot in NBA playoff history has to include Horry’s 3-pointer because it knotted the series at two games apiece as it headed back to Sacramento.

Do the Kings go to the Finals if Horry’s shot misses and they return to ARCO Arena with a 3-1 lead? After all, they won Game 5.

Would they then have beaten the Nets to win the 2002 NBA title?

Then, wouldn’t giddy Sacramentans have jumped through hoops to build a new arena for the team that would have helped the Maloofs turn a profit in central California?

San Antonians understand. Spurs fans giddy about the team’s first championship a few weeks later voted in a special election and approved funding of a new arena that guaranteed the team would remain in the Alamo City.

The same thing didn’t happen in Sacramento because there was no title the owners could use for leverage.

See? It was all the fault of Big Shot Rob.

Of course, Horry merely was doing his job as the greatest long-distance clutch shooter in league history. Nobody should resent that.

Nobody should be surprised the Kings are moving, either. They are the NBA’s itinerant franchise. The franchise started in Rochester, N.Y., in 1949 but moved to Cincinnati, Kansas City (and, for a few years, Omaha) before Sacramentan Gregg Lukenbill bought the team with an eye on moving them to his hometown.

After building a giant warehouse on property he owned north of the California state capitol, he turned it into the original ARCO Arena and convinced the NBA’s Board of Governors to let him move the team there in 1985.

There was local political intrigue aplenty around the move, but the team was embraced immediately by fans who didn’t seem to care how bad the team was. They endured 13 straight losing seasons before the Kings emerged in the late 1990s as a fast-paced powerhouse under coach Rick Adelman.

Now there are tears aplenty for the loyal Sac-town fans who know in their hearts they won’t be attending games in their town next season, but give Hansen and Ballmer this: They have been utterly transparent about their intent to move the team to their hometown.

Seattle never deserved to lose the Sonics, and fans there still believe they were deceived by Clay Bennett, who moved the team to his hometown, Oklahoma City.

It’s gratifying to know Seattle is regaining an NBA team, but it’s hard not to believe there are still some fans in Kansas City, where now stands an NBA-ready arena, wondering when they will get their second chance.